PROTECT AND DEFEND
Vince Flynn
Pocket
Political Thriller
Hardcover: 9780743270410
Paperback: 9781416505037

• Read an Excerpt

Vince Flynn's new novel, PROTECT AND DEFEND, clocks out at 100 pages an hour. I timed it myself --- from the very beginning, where CIA operative Mitch Rapp engages in a bit of housekeeping left over from ACT OF TREASON, all the way through 400 pages of edge-of-the-seat narrative, to the conclusion, where Rapp engages once again in a bit of housekeeping. Four hours, 403 pages. I missed dinner and time spent with my wife, but this one was way too good to put down.

PROTECT AND DEFEND gets rolling when the site of Iran's nuclear weapon program is summarily taken off the checkerboard by a guy with two saddlebags and a milk cart. Seriously. I'm not giving anything away here, either. Buy the book and read it just to find out how this gets done. The government of Iran is beside itself and, of course, is quick to blame the United States, even though we are as surprised as everyone (well, almost everyone) when the facility collapses.

Rapp figures out how it was done and comes up with a brilliant idea that will not only embarrass Iran even more but also overthrow its hostile government. Part of the plan involves a risky back-channel meeting near the Iran-Iraqi border between CIA Director Irene Kennedy and Azad Ashani, head of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security. Ashani sees no future for his country in the continued strife with the rest and is interested in taking the first tentative steps toward achieving peace.

What he does not know, however, is that Imad Mukhtar, a master terrorist in the employ of Hezbollah, has been recruited by Iran's president to turn the process into a bloodbath for the U.S. When the meeting goes horribly wrong, Rapp --- hamstrung in a city where his allies are greatly outnumbered by his enemies and under pressure from second-guessing quislings in his own government --- has only a few desperate hours to unravel Mukhtar's plot, which is part of a much larger plan to bring the world to the brink of war.

It cannot be said often enough: Flynn gets it. He understands how the world operates and infuses his characters with a consistent and coherent realism that is itself informed by a keen sense of clear-headedness and observation. Reading Flynn, particularly in PROTECT AND DEFEND, is like throwing open a window and taking in a breath of fresh, cold air that invigorates and enlightens without sacrificing entertainment value.

    --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

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